When I saw the picture I was amazed (thanks and congratulations to Hank Barnes of Gartner for this article full of ideas).
Because it made me connect the concept of Customer Lifetime Value (how much turnover and/or profit a customer brings from the first to the last day he remains your customer) …
… to the customer’s experience after his first purchase…
…and therefore, to the possibility that he’ll buy again!
In short, it wonderfully connects Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Lifecycle:
The figure urges us to rethink our perspective as suppliers. No more marketing lead generation sales; we should focus instead on the customer experience AFTER the purchase. Which is something the seller is always reluctant to evaluate, focused on “selfish” strategies of up-sell and cross-sell to get things done.
We’re interested in marketing.
We’re interested in lead generation.
We’re interested in closing the sale.
But not the customer.
He only cares about what he can get out of our product or service. And this is something we too often forget about.
The pitcure also highlights what I think is an area of improvement for EVERY business: that is, the phase in which the customer, who has now bought, begins to use the product or service. And it compares promises with reality.
Barnes calls this transition very effectively:
“Moment of Truth”.
It’s the moment of transition between the purchase cycle and the use cycle, when the customer stops thinking about the “potential value” he could get from what product or service and begins receiving “actual value”.
It is here, in the Moment of Truth, that we can all improve.
And when I say all, I say ALL (even my company, of course).
I don’t want to generalize, maybe someone has a perfect business… but isn’t it true that our focus is on sales, and that the after-sales service is taken for granted?
Isn’t it true that often the seller, after the sale, disappears leaving the customer alone with the product, or pass the baton to colleagues who provide the service and says “they are no longer my business” … and then comes back only months and months later to sell something else?
(Moreover, let’s be clear, it’s not the seller’s fault: it’s the machine he’s in, which leads him to behave like this…).
Here, then, is the answer to the original question:
It helps to sell but it is not marketing lead generation sale: what is it?
Here’s what it is: the Moment of Truth.
It’s the Moment of Truth which, together with all the other Moments of Truth of which the Customer Lifecycle is disseminated, helps to re-sell more than any seller or any marketing strategy lead generation sales etc…
So today I assign myself a task:
I want to identify at least 5 ways in which we could improve the Moment of Truth for our customers. I don’t want to revolutionize the delivery of our products or services. I could already identify 5 small things that could be applied quickly and easily.
Any advice?
Try the same exercise yourself.
P.S.: the Customer Lifecycle and Moment of Truth concepts are perfectly integrated with what is expressed in the free eBook “The 3 levers of turnover”. If you haven’t read it yet, you can download it here: https://www.b2binternationalgroup.com/lpfb/le-3-leve-del-fatturato-ebook-gratuito-blog/
P.P.S: this is the link to the full article by Hank Barnes of Gartner
